"There is another reason," my mother said, looking out of the window. "A reason that concerns—Lady Barbara." Then she glanced at me, a little shyly, and away her eyes went again to the window. "Lord Helmstone thinks a sea-voyage would be the best thing in the world for Mr. Annan. They are asking him to be one of the party."
I felt as if some hard substance had struck me violently in the face. But I managed to bring out the words: "Is he going, do you think?"
"No doubt he will go," she said.
Already I seemed to have lost him as utterly as though he had died. Yet with none of that sad comfort my mother had spoken of—the comfort of knowing one's possession safe beyond all risk of loss or tarnishing.
I had never been on a yacht.
I had never seen a yacht.
Yet I could see Eric on the Nautch Girl. And Lady Barbara!
Her mother's words came back: "Very little is done at balls." Very much, the story-books had told me, was done by throwing people together on a long voyage. My own heart told me the same.
Yes, I had lost him.